/vr/ - Retro Games

I never learned to solder.

>>8327562
Nah I don't think I will because leaving them lone until failure is acceptable.
I've got caps older than you.

I've ordered this but hasn't arrived yet, I'm not paying more for other standalone meters when this is good enough. I've already desoldered all the caps.

>>8327562
I plan on learning how to solder come 2022. Caps going bad makes me greatly worried.

>>8327668
What is that?

>>8327693
Any avenue you're planning to use to learn? I'd like to do it to my Xbox motherboard (at least replacing the clock cap - hasn't burst yet but I haven't had that particular Xbox plugged in either).

>>8327562
Not a chance. All my original hardware remains original, and I'll not have it become some dishonest ship of Theseus repro.

>>8327708
Not sure yet. I plan on deep diving into tech/console repair, replacement and modification. I've been doing my best to keep the things I own running and in good shape, but I want to step up my game so to speak.

Good luck with your Xbox. I thankfully was lucky enough to have ended up with a late model that is safe from the clock cap issues, Now I just have to get the system properly put back together, because I'm a lazy shit that has left it covered but unfastened under my bed

>>8327701
Capacitance and ESR meter, among other things like component ID for 8 bucks.

>>8327668
If you're going to go through the trouble of removing them to test out of circuit, you may as well replace them.

>>8327728
My main Xbox along with the one I bought with this other Xbox for a friend's gifts have the final motherboard revisions but the third Xbox that I got in order to get a good deal on my friend's was pre-modded and has a older motherboard with the shitty clock cap.

>>8327562
Why should I, nerd

>>8327564
then learn faggot.

>>8327747
You have to remove them to test, there's no other way. You don't have to remove all, I've only removed the dodgy ones on my Pentium 4 boards.
I still have to remove the solder with solder wick on the through holes.

>>8327562
Are PS1s safe? I mostly never touch my shit, but I heard something about PSU replacement every 15 years or some shit.

Do VCRs need to be recapped? I have an s-vhs machine with some nasty color bleeding, and I wonder if it's due to bad capacitors or something else.

>>8328165
>Are PS1s safe?
Yes. They may be safe for another 20 years.

>>8328181
>Do VCRs need to be recapped?
Yes.

>>8327579
what? dude that response is weird. Caps fail, and bulge all the time. I guess you never worked on arcade pcbs, or monitors.

>>8327562
A capacitor, right? Useful for when you want a sudden surge of current in a circuit?

>>8328193
>Caps fail, and bulge all the time. I
Right and many times they hang on just fine for decades and decades.

>I guess you never worked on arcade pcbs, or monitors.
True, I hire a guy to do that since I don't want to die.
t. klutz

>>8328195
C = ε(A/d)

>>8328165
The only ones in danger are Sega consoles because they used cheapass caps in the mid nineties.

what tolerance should console and tv replacement capacitors have? 20%? 10%? 5%? -10% +25%?
for smd caps, how is lead space measured, from the inside, outside, middle of the leads or what?

>tfw fond memories of taking apart the tv with my brother while our mom was out and "popping" the caps with a dinner knife

>>8328181
Most likely the magnetic heads are worn out.

>>8327562
I've got a pc engine with buster graphics on the scroll layer, this could be my last hope to repair it.
I brought a big bag of caps on ebay buy they are cheap brands and have that electonics smell.

>>8328326
One of my early sega megadrive's uses rubicon, a good brand these days, my gamegears are all burst though.

>>8327562
>get AV Famicom as my 1st retro console years back
>no bad caps
feels good man
>get an original XBox recently
>buttons don’t work
>caps completely destroyed all the traces from the front buttons
jap>amerinutts quality

>>8327564
I did solely to mod a 360. It's pretty easy, but fuck ever doing that again and fuck hardwarefagging in general.

>>8327747
>If you're going to go through the trouble of removing them
... but that's how you properly test them, otherwise you test the capacity of the whole circuit.

>>8328447
>what tolerance should console and tv replacement capacitors have? 20%? 10%? 5%? -10% +25%?
preferably same as the original component
>for smd caps, how is lead space measured, from the inside, outside, middle of the leads or what?

>smd
>leads
what?

>>8327562
Don't even attempt this if you don't know what you're doing ,some boards are extremely easy to work on and some aren't,Im fairly experienced with soldering and I've had some nightmare experiences.

>>8328918
Pc engine duo and gamegear are pretty bad but the worst ive seen by far was my xbox 360 ,half the caps had exploded

Not my problem.

>>8329102
Do you even own one? Why not take your own picture?

>>8328193
maybe in america

>>8329102
to paraphrase an >>>/o/ meme
post MiSTer on hood

>>8329106
>>8329301

>>8329358
Well I’ll be damned

>>8329373
it's his gay lover
he just asked him to hold it

this is him actually

>>8329358
Demonstrably based

>>8328923
the Famicom controller doesn't have caps. It's just an 8 bit shift register and a PCB.

>>8329446
>controller
what?

>>8329454
never mind I thought front buttons meant the face buttons. Did you mean the buttons on the console?

>>8329463
yes and I was talking about the xbox not the famicom
this is extremely common and I bet there isn't a single not damaged OG xbox out there
I would go so far as to say this was intentionally badly designed to make the OG Xboxes obsolete in a certain time

Telling people to replace all caps as the go-to "solution" for all /vr/-related hardware issues is the equivalent of microsoft pajeet tech support telling you to reinstall all your drivers and reinstall your operating system for any software issue. Yeah, it will probably help, but in almost all circumstances it's total overkill and probably unnecessary. If a specific issue can be tied to a specific component or circuit, that's another matter.

>>8329035
He's talking about how far apart the mounting points are. There are SMDs that are electrically identical but one may have a larger diameter than the other and so can't easily be interchanged

Except for the obvious systems with known bad caps, isn't the failure state for most caps to dry out?
If so, would it not be reasonable to wait until something actually goes wrong before you replace caps?
How likely is it for a failed cap to cause irreparable damage to a system?

>>8327564
I tried soldering and ruined a board.

>>8329710
Same bro. I'm was going to practice on a shitty CRT, but the caps would've cost me 80 Canada Bucks.

>>8329548
They leak and then all the caps in the circuit go bad, or they may corrode the PCB.

>>8329759
That happens over years/decades though. If that's the concern, for the most part you can just open the console up, inspect the components, make sure there aren't any caps that are physically bulging/leaking, and check the board for any corrosion or electrolytic fluid. If there's none, and you're not experiencing any problems with the console, the idea of feeling the need for a total cap replacement seems a bit silly. If you're super concerned maybe every couple years reopen your console and reinspect it to make sure no electrolytics have leaked since the last check.

Only exception I'd make is for stuff that's so notoriously bad like the turbo duos that they really should just be recapped no matter what. But that's the exception rather than the rule.

>>8329759
I'm not talking about the obvious systems with known leaky caps, though.
I was under the impression that not all caps leak and the general failure state is for them to dry out.
Does a cap drying out pose a threat such that one must do a shotgun-approach recap of everything they own to be safe?

>SMD capacitors
I want to strangle whoever the faggot was who invented this bullshit

Vectrex screen takes a while to turn on, but sound comes on almost immediately. Probably caps right?

>>8330059
definitely

>>8329852
Honestly they aren't too bad once you get the hang of it ,removing them with snips works well

>>8329852
get proper tools

>>8329035
i ask because i can't find documentation about the original component tolerances. presumably the narrower the tolerance the better

Outside of manufacturing defects there is no reason to recap 32 bit and up consoles at this point. Even 16 bit consoles probably don't need it. When you watch a video of a guy blasting caps with a hot air rework station then pointing out how it leaked fluid after the fact is retarded, it leaked from boiling the fluid with the rework station.

If you see shine on the board around a cap before using a hot air rework station, it's probably unburnt Flux. Look around other components that don't have fluid and you'll see it also has that fluid around it.

>>8329852
Get a cheapo hot air station, with a little practice they are easy

>>8327701
m tester. Cheap microprocessor driven component tester. Infinite variations, all from china.